Story Killers

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RikWriter

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Badly done wars are pretty much the lingua franca of SCi-Fi. I don't really mind them -- though I was spoiled by the fighting in Banks' Excession -- just very good, that one.
Another odd thing -- the current drone attacks in reality (right, I mean the real drones that pick people off more or less at the individual level even if the collateral damage can be high) -- are much stranger than anything I've ever seen in the Bad Wars of Sci fi. The whole drone thing seems very odd -- here are some more or less religious terrorists doing everything for the greater glory of God and then some machine comes over and blows them up after more or less omniscently and omnipotently watching them and judging them from the sky. It's just very strange and yet Sci Fi has never really managed anything quite like that conceptual collision (ominscient, omnipotent drones hunting down religious terrorists).

Not religious terrorists, but armed drones have been around for a while. Look up a short SF story called "Watchbird." I personally don't like armed drones and I made a concerted attempt in my books to come up with reasons why future militaries don't use them. In my Duty, Honor, Planet trilogy, I say in the third book that the reason is the horrible slaughter of refugees carried out by unmanned drones in the aftermath of a nuclear war between Russia and China. It horrified people enough that arming drones is enough to get you strung up. Plenty of unarmed drones around, of course.
In other stories, I make it clear that the communications link between the drones and the operators is too vulnerable to jamming and spoofing, and AI's aren't trusted with weapons.
 
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KateJJ

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Magic birth control in an otherwise-identical-to-1400-Europe fantasy setting. Like, they still have plagues and women die in childbirth and 95% of people are peasants, but the hero/ine has access to cheap, easy, no-side-effects birth control. Any idea what that would do to the demographics?

Teenagers on colony planets allowed to act like teenagers instead of the cheap labor source they truly are, sitting around whining with their friends that there's nothing to doooo, they hate this place so much.
 

rwm4768

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It's funny. Most of these things don't really bother me. I could see how they might bother me if the story wasn't good. But if the story is good, I"ll forgive a lot.
 

King Neptune

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If that's going to be the reason for male pattern baldness still being around, then it needs to be illustrated. The readers (or in this case the watchers) need to have it explained at some point.
And there's a difference between choosing to have your head depilated and allowing your hair to fall out on its own.

That's why I have trouble find ing an audience. I can't imagine any human not favoring natural male baldness over the alternatives. It may become more common for men to imitate natural baldness, if they don't have that good fortune (good genes).
 

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Any narration that gives away any hint of subtlety. For example, a point is made that a character has an enchanted item that protects him from fire. Then a dragon breathes fire on him and he is unharmed. The narration stops the flow of the story to remind us about his enchanted items.

Vampires that don't act anything like vampires.

Magic that pretends to be science.

Female characters that whine about being female. Like in "Dime Store Magic" which had a "pity us" factor, of how evil men kept the female witches down throughout history. Yes, that's how you get respect. You cry about it.
 

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What the heck is a grassoid?

I'm assuming a plantlike organism that isn't really grass (as in, it's not a monocot from the family/clade Poaceae, but it superficially resembles a grass or fills a similar niche in its native ecosystem).

See, this wouldn't bother me, as one of my peeves in SF is how everyone assumes all the same phyla, classes, orders, and families that have evolved on Earth would exist on alien planets.

As for tossing books, there are a lot of things I don't like much. Excessive filtering (amazing how so many published authors filter, filter, filter, even though we're all told not to), holes in the world building, cliches and so on. I also hate it when there's something that's just plain wrong, as in not an opinion or misconception held by a character in the story, but a premise of the story that a little research would actually reveal as completely counter to known fact at the time the story was written. It also drives me nuts to be reading a secondary fantasy or historic novel and for a word or term that is really out of place to have sneaked through the editorial process. I was reading a fantasy novel a while ago where someone had "adrenaline" pounding through their veins. Really? Did they research the origins of that word? Even if the people in their world have an advanced knowledge about endocrinology for some reason, no, just no.

But I can forgive a lot if the characters and story grab me. Whether mistakes like these make me toss a book depends on the presentation, I guess.

When I put a book down and don't come back, the reasons tend to be:

1. I just can't get into the characters or relate to their problems. All kinds of reasons for this, ranging from the personalty (or lack thereof), heavy, slow writing or pacing, issues I can't relate to, the character being too effortlessly powerful or awesome, or the way the character is written. For me, stories are primarily about characters. So I guess a story that feels like it's more about events than people? A tough sell for me.

2. Sausage fests, especially where it's not clear why they're sausage fests. Or, if you're going to have a story set in a man's world where there are no interesting women at all (or women are just victims and commodities), the story had better have some damned interesting men, and the author had better make it clear to me that he didn't make the story this way because it simply didn't occur to him that women are people too or that women might also read SF and F.

3. Speculative worlds that are quirky or strange just because the author is trying to be quirky and strange and didn't even think the implications of that quirkiness through. There's some great SF and F set on very alien worlds, but if that alienness isn't going to be part of what drives the story, characters, or at least doesn't set realistic constraints on the characters, then why? It's just something that knocks me out of disbelief or makes the character and situation less relatable.

4. Stories where I feel like I'm being lectured or subtly pressured into a particular world view. And yeah, I probably notice this more when the world view is one I find repellent, or if the author in question is outspoken in his or her sociopolitical beliefs. It's hard to get into a book when I'm expecting to see homophobia or sexism around every corner.
 
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RikWriter

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For me it's the preaching.


I agree somewhat, but you have to realize that almost every book in every genre is espousing the author's political or philosophical or religious positions to some extent. Some are just less ham-handed about it than others. The best of them can slip it in so subtly you don't realize it for a long time that they did it at all. Others are just such good writers or write books that are so much fun to read that you don't care they're sometimes preaching. John Ringo comes in on the right wing side of that and Peter Hamilton on the left.

Also, sometimes just because a character believes something doesn't mean it's actually true.
For instance, in the first book of my Duty, Honor, Planet trilogy, the protagonist (and one would think, the author) is a staunch defender of his government and their iron-fisted policies towards political malcontents and trouble-makers. He's also very resolute in his determination that their military in its present form is totally necessary to meet a very real threat from without.
By the end of the third book, nearly all that is turned on its head, but I've got reviews from people who think I am a right-wing warmonger because they think the views in the first book are mine rather than those of the characters. They didn't bother to read on and find out that the world turned out to be much more complicated than the 25 year old junior officer in the first book thought it was.
 
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RikWriter

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That's why I have trouble find ing an audience. I can't imagine any human not favoring natural male baldness over the alternatives. It may become more common for men to imitate natural baldness, if they don't have that good fortune (good genes).

What do you think these horrible alternatives ARE? Because I think that it would become very simple to just alter a couple genes in the womb and prevent the baldness from ever occurring.
 

Atalanta

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The mirror trick. If I read the first few pages while standing in a book store, or in an online preview, and a character walks in front of a mirror to give the author an excuse to describe them, I put the book down with haste.

If I've already bought it, the worst offense is stereotyped characters -- people of color, QUILTBAG, women, ethnic minorities, whatever. Even if it's just a minor character, I'm done.
 

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I forgot what all the letters stand for, but it's catch all for those of alternative sexualities. Edit: not sure, but I think it's Queer *something* Intersex Lesbian Transexual Bisexual Asexual Gay. I can't remember what the U stood for.

Also, why wouldn't people take the cure for male baldness? Considering all the methods people use today, they'd jump at a chance to cure it. Baldness sucks unless you're one of the few people who looks good bald like Patrick Stewart.
 
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King Neptune

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What do you think these horrible alternatives ARE? Because I think that it would become very simple to just alter a couple genes in the womb and prevent the baldness from ever occurring.



It would be horrible to have a head of hair like what I had when I was eight.

Why would a man not want to become hair-free? It just doesn't make sense.

I would have to research to be sure, but I think the genes that switch for becoming hair-free are involved in other sex related characteristics, so changing them might not be a good idea.
 

Roxxsmom

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It would be horrible to have a head of hair like what I had when I was eight.

Why would a man not want to become hair-free? It just doesn't make sense.

Because women often prefer men with hair on their heads? Seriously, a lot of people are motivated by the desire to be attractive in a conventional way and to use things like our hair to express our individuality and so on. Otherwise, we'd all (men and women both) keep our scalp hair clipped as short as possible to keep it out of the way.

For my own part, my husband's slowly growing bald, and I love him and will love him and find him adorable, no matter how little or much hair he has. I was bald as an egg for two years (due to an autoimmune condition that is now, thankfully, in remission, and not female pattern baldness), and he still loved me and found me attractive when I was hairless (and boy oh boy, is there a double standard about male and female baldness, let me tell you).

And both our bodies are changing in other ways too as we grow older, and we continue to love one another and find one another attractive (though this is not at all a given for many couples)

But it wouldn't break my heart if there were a magic pill that kept the various aesthetic effects of aging at bay, including pattern baldness in both genders. I'll candidly admit, that I tend to think think of men and women with full heads of hair as more conventionally attractive when I read about them in books, but I certainly am open to bald beauty as a societal norm in speculative fiction. Who knows what people will like in the future?

Don't read Atlas Shrugged.

Oh, wait. You said subtly.
:D

Oh, god, I tried to read that years ago, and I couldn't even get far enough into the thing to get to the propaganda. But yeah, non-subtle lecturing is even less appealing.

Magic birth control in an otherwise-identical-to-1400-Europe fantasy setting. Like, they still have plagues and women die in childbirth and 95% of people are peasants, but the hero/ine has access to cheap, easy, no-side-effects birth control. Any idea what that would do to the demographics?
.

Now I tend to get annoyed by novels where they have magic and other cool stuff that wasn't present in real history, but still no reasonably reliable method of contraception. It always seems like a cop-out excuse for creating a world/story where female characters have to stay out of things completely or else be totally chaste (or else I spend the entire story worrying about her getting pregnant).

I agree, though, that widespread availability of such things would make society very different in some ways (though I can think of plausible reasons why such things might be available but still not widely used by most women), but this is one of the reasons I read fantasy.
 
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Atalanta

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What is QUILTBAG?

Google is your friend.

I don't like the word "alternative" when it's used to describe people. I'm not all that fond of QUILTBAG either, but I do like quilts. :D I just think of it as an umbrella term for all the folks who break the binary gender mold, whether by appearance or behavior.
 
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It would be horrible to have a head of hair like what I had when I was eight.

Why would a man not want to become hair-free? It just doesn't make sense.

I would have to research to be sure, but I think the genes that switch for becoming hair-free are involved in other sex related characteristics, so changing them might not be a good idea.


There are many people of both sexes who look good bald. But not all of them.

Personally, I would never want to be bald. I like my hair long.
 

Zoombie

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With due apologies to all Jedi knights, swords being a viable counter to laser or even projectile weapons. And yeah I know about the force and the midichloriens and all that, but c'mon fellas, just look what happened when the samurai took on muskets. Even Tom Cruise couldn't save them.

In my novel, the MC has superhuman reflexes, centuries of practice at swording, and a magical sword...and she still can only parry lasers like one time out of ten.

The thing that kills a story fast for me are...

1) Trying to offer a "counter" argument that is just set ups for why the counter argument is wrong. I remember re-reading a series and getting increasingly aggravated at how goddamn one sided it was, and one group of characters were basically strawmen set up to be knocked down by the rhetoric of the other side. It pissed me off.

2) Mopey superhumans. Oh boo hoo, I live forever, have flight, shapeshifting, am sexy, and all I need to do to not die is drink blood by seducing and drinking it from beautiful people, woe is me. Either deal with it or try and turn it into a positive, people! This is why I want to write a novel called I AM THE DARK AND TERRIBLE STALKER OF THE NIGHT, which will be about a newly turned vampire who immediately makes a superhero costume and starts beating up criminals.

3) Body horror as pregnancy metaphor. It was clever when Alien did it. Forty years ago. Now it's just gross.

Hmm...

Anything else that kills a story?

Nah, can't think of anything.
 

noranne

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As far as baldness and the like, I think it's quite possible that in the future we will have the ability to basically manipulate our bodies more easily, but I don't think that means everyone is going to look exactly the same. People prize their individuality. I figure most people will fall within a range of "normalcy" but even that isn't strictly defined. Plus there are always outliers. Not to mention that it's not likely the beauty standards of the future will be anything like they are now.
 

thepicpic

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Why would a man not want to become hair-free? It just doesn't make sense.

Perhaps because I had to have a bout of baldness due to chemotherapy and hated it? Perhaps because, in my mind, I look quite roguish with a full head of hair?

I'm seconding the whole 'swords are better than ranged weapons in the future' as a book-killer. Go on. Stage a head-on assault on a marine squad with your katana. I dare you.

Other than that... hmm. The ever-popular apostrophes that seem to breed and take root in people's names between the stars. I can't think of any more right now, but I might do when I wake up properly.
 

BethS

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Vampires that don't act anything like vampires.

Ummm...is there a vampire manual lying around somewhere? :D I mean, who gets to say how vampires (an invented creature) should act?

Or did you mean they don't act consistent with the way the rules are set up in a particular story?
 
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SpiteLokidottir

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Bad writing. And overly emotional characters. If the world was going to end in 12 hours, I wouldn't spend those 12 hours arguing with others over trivial issues. I don't know many people who would.
 
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Once!

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The baldness debate interests me because ... well, partly because I am certainly more Jean Luc Picard than Chewbacca ...

... and partly because I had never before thought of it as a credibility issue for science fiction.

A future Earth might well have discovered a cure for baldness. But equally they might have decided that being bald wasn't as much of a stigma as it is now.

In fact, we need to qualify that ... being bald isn't as much of an issue today as it was say twenty years ago. Didn't Sean Connery go through every Bond film except Dr No wearing a hairpiece? And yet today we have actors such as Bruce Willis, Jason Statham and Patrick Stewart being proud to be skin slappers.

So I don't see a problem with the captain of the Enterprise being follically challenged. For all we know, he might have made a conscious decision to allow nature to stay its course. If I was offered a cure for my baldness right now I am really not sure if I would take it. My shiny forehead is as much a part of me as anything else.

Perhaps that leads us into another story killer though - the assumption that people in the future will automatically think the way that we do. If attitudes to male baldness can change in the last few decades then surely they would also change in the next few centuries.

Geordi's visor? Again, I wouldn't categories it as an insta-fail. For all we know there might be a disease affecting the eyes which could only be treated by a piece of technology like his visor. Maybe a new disease that we haven't come across yet?
 

TheRob1

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Star Trek actually adresses (more or less) both why Picard is bald and why Geordi is blind.

Short answer for Picard is that Rodenberry was asked about having a bald Captain and whether or not baldness would be cured in the future. He answered that in the future people won't care as much about baldness.

When it comes to genetic manipulation, it's illegal in the federation except for the most essential life saving therapies. This is because of the Eugenics wars which gave us people like Khan and Bashir.

When it comes to bionic and cloned replacements those technologies are repeatedly to be shown as 'hit or miss' in the federation. Rejection still happens. Nog had trouble accepting his bionic leg during the Dominion war.

Still, I can see your point on issues like that if they're not addressed.

I think the biggest story stopper for me the last couple of years has been niche audiences that clearly don't include me. I've read books by a couple different, both very prolific authors, who have distilled their audiences to a single demographic. One writes a type of low magic fantasy and has some incredible world building. Good enough that despite how much I hated his self righteous characters and how much he loved them, I actually struggled through more than one of his books. The other author writes Urban Fantasy and I couldn't get through even one of his books. The hero was too perfect and everyone either loved him or was wrong and if they were wrong they were also stupid. The author did manage to choreograph some beautiful fights, but by the third time he was fighting vampires in an office building I was done.
 

King Neptune

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Because women often prefer men with hair on their heads? Seriously, a lot of people are motivated by the desire to be attractive in a conventional way and to use things like our hair to express our individuality and so on. Otherwise, we'd all (men and women both) keep our scalp hair clipped as short as possible to keep it out of the way.

For my own part, my husband's slowly growing bald, and I love him and will love him and find him adorable, no matter how little or much hair he has. I was bald as an egg for two years (due to an autoimmune condition that is now, thankfully, in remission, and not female pattern baldness), and he still loved me and found me attractive when I was hairless (and boy oh boy, is there a double standard about male and female baldness, let me tell you).

And both our bodies are changing in other ways too as we grow older, and we continue to love one another and find one another attractive (though this is not at all a given for many couples)

But it wouldn't break my heart if there were a magic pill that kept the various aesthetic effects of aging at bay, including pattern baldness in both genders. I'll candidly admit, that I tend to think think of men and women with full heads of hair as more conventionally attractive when I read about them in books, but I certainly am open to bald beauty as a societal norm in speculative fiction. Who knows what people will like in the future?

Many women prefer men who are hair-free.

Becoming hair-free is not an "effect of aging"; it is a sign of maturation. Male children have full heads of hair, but adult males are hair-free.

Certainly some prefer to hold onto the signs of youth as long as possible, but there are many early middle-aged men (20 to 40) who shave their heads to try to gain the appearance of being older. Tastes vary.
 
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